The vaccine -- a live recombinant bacterial antigen adhesion Hp0410 -- induced specific anti-Hp0410 IgG antibodies in serum and showed "a significant increase in the level of protection against gastric Helicobacter infection following attack by the H. pylori strain SS1," wrote Fan Hongying, of the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues.

The vaccine was administered through the yogurt culture Lactobacillus acidophilus.

The vaccine may serve as an alternative treatment to antibiotic or proton pump inhibitor therapy, both of which are ineffective in roughly one in five patients.

-- Cole Petrochko

Stopping Leukemia Cells Cold

A form of light therapy achieved high rates of malignant-cell destruction in studies involving leukemia cell lines.

Within 24 hours after exposure to cold-plasma energy, 90% of leukemia cells had been destroyed. Healthy cells were unaffected because they contained lower levels of reactive species as compared with the cancer cells, as reported in Biotechnology and Engineering.

"Cold plasma induces cancer cells to self-destruct, but it can leave healthy cells unharmed," Magesh Thiyagarajan, PhD, of Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, said in a statement.

Conventional plasma energy heats gas molecules to form colored light rays, as seen in plasma televisions. Cold plasma can induce apoptosis or cell necrosis without the heat that can harm healthy cells.

-- Charles Bankhead

Obesity-Asthma Link Could Be Immunologic

Obesity might cause asthma by impacting the immune system, according to preclinical findings that could open up new ways to get around the poor treatment response in obese asthma patients.

"It's been a puzzle to understand why obesity predisposes people to asthma," lead researcher Dale Umetsu, MD, PhD, formerly of Boston Children's Hospital and now at Genentech, explained in a statement.

"We have discovered an inflammatory pathway to asthma that previously had not been recognized. This pathway may be resistant to standard asthma medications such as corticosteroids."

In his group's study, mice that became obese on a high-fat diet developed the airway hypersensitivity characteristic of asthma and had several inflammation-causing alterations in the innate immune system compared with normal-weight mice.

Obese mice genetically unable to produce some of those immune factors didn't develop asthma, whereas putting cells that produced those inflammatory factors in the knockout mice led to asthma symptoms.

Notably, treatment with the biologic drug anakinra (Kineret) to block production of those factors also kept normal mice from developing obesity-related asthma, the researchers reported online in Nature Medicine.

-- Crystal Phend

A Cure for a Congenital Eye Defect?

An investigational drug that targets nonsense mutations appeared to reverse aniridia in mice, researchers found. Aniridia is a congenital condition that affects about 5,000 people in North America and eventually leads to severe vision problems.

Cheryl Gregory-Evans, PhD, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and colleagues formulated ataluren -- which is currently in clinical development for treating cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy -- into eye drops and administered them to 2-week-old mice with aniridia, which is caused by a nonsense mutation in the gene producing PAX6, a protein involved in eye development.

The researchers expect a trial of about 30 children and teens to begin next year in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. The treatment is not expected to work in adults with the condition, since they would already have suffered extensive eye damage.

"This holds promise for treating other eye conditions caused by nonsense mutations, including some types of macular degeneration," Gregory-Evans said in a statement. "And if it reverses damage in the eye, it raises the possibility of a cure for other congenital disorders."

Genetic deficiency of two Fc receptor gamma signaling chain variants -- Fc-gamma-RIII and Fc-gamma-RIV -- in an autoimmune mouse model was protective against valvular carditis, according to Bryce A. Binstadt, MD, PhD, of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Also contributing to this process of cardiac inflammation were CD4+ T cells.

These findings suggest that treatments that modulate the function of Fc receptors such as intravenous immunoglobulin could be protective against carditis. In addition, because activating Fc receptor signaling chains requires spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk) for signaling, a Syk inhibitor such as fostamatinib might offer a therapeutic approach to cardiac inflammation in patients with these autoimmune diseases.

-- Nancy Walsh

CORRECTION: This article, which was originally published Dec. 20, 2013 at 5:54 p.m., has been corrected. (Dec. 28, 2013).

Accessibility Statement

At MedPage Today, we are committed to ensuring that individuals with disabilities can access all of the content offered by MedPage Today through our website and other properties. If you are having trouble accessing www.medpagetoday.com, MedPageToday's mobile apps, please email legal@ziffdavis.com for assistance. Please put "ADA Inquiry" in the subject line of your email.